Tess Monaghan Books in Order

Years after being found not guilty by reason of insanity for leaving her baby to die in a hot car, Melisandre Harris Dawes returns to Baltimore to film a documentary and reconnect with her surviving daughters. Hired to provide security, Tess finds herself judging another woman's motherhood while protecting her own child.

When expensive children's picture books keep disappearing from a cozy Baltimore shop each Saturday, Tess Monaghan offers her services for free. Tracking the book thief leads her into the odd world of collectors, free book exchanges, and a scheme that says a lot about who thinks they own stories.

In late pregnancy and confined to bed, Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan passes the time watching a woman in a green raincoat walk her dog each day. When the dog appears alone, Tess investigates from her sun porch, uncovering a missing woman and older crimes.

When Tess nearly collides with a film crew while rowing, she lands a job protecting the temperamental young star of a TV series shooting in Baltimore. Sabotage, accidents, and ugly secrets swirl on set, and Tess must sort petty drama from real danger before the production turns deadly.

Working as a consultant to the local paper, Tess treats the murder of a young federal prosecutor as just another case to diagram. Then her boyfriend brings home a teenage grifter who knows too much, and Tess's choice to protect him pits her against federal agents and a ruthless killer.

A devout Baltimore businessman hires Tess to find his missing wife and three children, who seem to have run off with another man. Tracking them pulls Tess into a web of hidden identities, uneasy alliances, and hard questions about how far someone will go to escape a controlling family.

Ordered into anger management, Tess takes a consulting job with a nonprofit reviewing five unsolved domestic violence homicides. What begins as paperwork turns into a road trip through small town Maryland, where she and an obsessed ex cop realize the deaths may point to one relentless killer with Tess in the crosshairs.

Curious about the anonymous visitor who leaves roses and cognac at Edgar Allan Poe's grave each year, Tess stakes out the ritual and sees a man shot dead in the cemetery. Drawn into a case steeped in literary obsession and greed, she finds that someone is now leaving her macabre clues.

A family friend asks Tess to review an old case in which a junkie confessed to killing a teenage runaway and then died in prison. Chasing the thin trail of a nameless Jane Doe, Tess moves from Baltimore's Inner Harbor to wealthy suburbs, exposing political games and a very dangerous refuge.

A newspaper clipping and photograph of her musician ex, Crow, labeled in big trouble, lure Tess from Baltimore to the music clubs of Texas. There she finds a vanished band, family secrets, and a case that tests how well she ever knew the man she once loved.

Newly licensed PI Tess has set up shop in the rough Butchers Hill neighborhood when Luther Beale, infamous for shooting a teen vandal, hires her to find the kids who witnessed his crime. As those witnesses start dying, she confronts Baltimore's juvenile justice system and the cost of vigilante rage.

Tycoon Wink Wynkowski is poised to bring pro basketball back to Baltimore when a damning expose about his past suddenly appears in the paper. Hired to track down the hacker behind the story, Tess uncovers a tangle of money, sports, and murder that goes far beyond one leaked article.

When her Baltimore newspaper folds, out of work reporter Tess Monaghan agrees to look into the murder of a flashy lawyer who was sleeping with her friend's fiancee. Clearing her rowing buddy means diving into city politics, newsroom grudges, and a killer who knows she is looking.